Light emitting diodes (LEDs) are semiconductor-based light sources often employed in low-power instrumentation and appliance applications for indication purposes. LEDs conventionally are available in a variety of colors (e.g., red, green, yellow, blue, white), based on the types of materials used in their fabrication. This color variety of LEDs recently has been exploited to create novel LED-based light sources having sufficient light output for new space-illumination applications. For example, as discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,016,038, multiple differently colored LEDs may be combined in a lighting fixture, wherein the intensity of the LEDs of each different color is independently varied to produce a number of different hues. In one example of such an apparatus, red, green, and blue LEDs are used in combination to produce literally hundreds of different hues from a single lighting fixture. Additionally, the relative intensities of the red, green, and blue LEDs may be computer controlled, thereby providing a programmable multi-color light source. Such LED-based light sources have been employed in a variety of lighting applications in which variable color lighting effects are desired.